Another Part of the Wood

by Denis Mackail

  It sounded pleased, patronising and slightly bored. It sounded like the voice in a box-office where fashion has suddenly smiled. It sounded like a grocer during the great war.

  “I’m speaking for Mrs. Shirley,” said Sylvia. And she began spelling it.

  An extraordinary change came over the voice at the other end of the line.

  “Just a minute,” it said. “I’ll see what we can do.”

  It sounded eager, apologetic and humble. It sounded like a voice that was sorry it had ever been crisp. It sounded like a grocer before the great war.

  It could just be heard talking to another voice, and the other voice obviously had very little patience with it. The other voice appeared to fell it with some blunt instrument, to kick the body aside, and to take its place at the telephone.

  “Mrs. Shirley? I’m sorry there was any misunderstanding, madam. That will be quite all right.”

  “Looking over the sea?” said Sylvia.

  “Of course, madam.”

  The new voice—a masculine voice, with a suggestion of morning-coat and neatly-striped trousers, and lustrous black hair with a slight wave in it—was clearly prepared to turn the whole hotel round, if necessary, so only that Mrs. Shirley’s rooms should look over the sea.

  “That will be quite all right,” it said again. “I’ve got just what you want, madam.”

  “Thank you,” said Sylvia. “We’ll be coming down this afternoon, then.”

  “Any time you like, madam. Delighted.”

  “Good-bye,” said Sylvia.

  “Thank you, madam,” said the voice.

  Miss Shirley put the receiver back with an air of tranquil accomplishment, and went upstairs to think about packing. Nothing in this conversation had surprised her, and nothing had marked it as exceptional. People were always like that until they heard Mummie’s name, and then they were always like this. They’re never like this with us, but then we never expect them to be—which is the chief secret of it all. A victim in our own category will, we imagine, find that an unaccountable mistake has been made about his reservation when he reaches Newcliff to-night; or else it is the practice of all hotels to keep a suite up their sleeves even at Whitsun, in case a Mrs. Shirley should suddenly come along. What would happen, one wonders, if two or more Mrs. Shirleys came along on the same day? We give it up. All we know is that the lustrous black hair would manage it somehow. It may be a miracle, but it is a very commonplace one.

  So Sylvia left Beaky’s envelope and his blank sheet of paper on the breakfast-table, and thought about packing. And packed. And went out for a walk. And thought what a marvellous day it was. And wondered if Noodles’s school would let her come out to lunch at the Majestic. And actually thought about Noodles’s brother, and wondered when she would see him again. And thought, again, how he was really most awfully nice. And thought how he was really a pearl. And thought how she was really quite stupid about him, and how she’d never really been so stupid about anybody else. And thought how if she chose to let herself go, she could be even stupider—quite easily. And decided, suddenly, that she hadn’t really thought any of these things, and she didn’t really want anything to happen, because it was no good going and being stupid. And, besides, everything was really so awfully nice as it was.

  And she met several friends on various sections of hot or shady pavement, and stopped and talked to them, and the people who went by stared at them, and became rather stupid too. Because these people thought how disgraceful it was that young women should stand about on the pavement, doing nothing for the benefit of the human race, and looking so monstrously cool, and wearing stockings like that, and upsetting people who had got such much more important things to think about. And particularly they were annoyed with Sylvia and her friends because they gave them lumps in their throats and chests just as they were cursing the luxury of the age and deciding what fine fellows they were themselves; because of their damnable air of innocence, and their abominable youth, and their utterly unjustifiable claim to be, in some ridiculous way, pathetic. So these people scowled and rushed along the hot or shady pavement; for it was intolerable that they should be over thirty on a day like this, and insufferable that they should be wasting their time on regrets, and unbearable that their lives were not altogether different in every way. And then they suddenly forgot all about Sylvia and her friends, and stopped scowling and hurrying, and only knew that something rather nice had just happened to them, and that they were fine fellows again, after all.

  Thus Sylvia and her friends disturbed the traffic of several well-known streets; and then she came home again, and did a little unpacking, and a little re-packing, and a little face-making in one or two different hats, and quite agreed with her mother about the little frock from Paris, and hunted for her keys, and couldn’t find them but found some more handkerchiefs instead—which are always useful—and danced for a minute or two because she happened to feel like it. And shouted: “All right, darling. Just coming!” And went downstairs to lunch.

  “What news about the boiler, Mummie?”

  “They’re sending another one off to-day. By road, this time.”

  “Poor Mr. Everett!”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Oh, Mummie! What about asking Noodles Brett to come over to lunch one day? To-morrow or Sunday, I mean. Shall we?”

  “Noodles Brett?”

  “Oh, darling—you remember. Beaky’s sister. She’s at school at Newcliff.”

  “Beaky?”

  “Oh, darling—please!”

  Please what? Please don’t play that other game of pretending you don’t understand. Please don’t look at me with that other sort of smile that understands much too much. Please, in fact, don’t make it more difficult than it has all suddenly become anyhow.

  The other sort of smile vanishes.

  “Ask anybody you like,” says Mrs. Shirley, obligingly. “I shall never know your friends apart.”

  “Oh, Mummie!”

  “But as long as they look nice …”

  “Oh, Mummie! You are so awfully——”

  “What?”

  “Mummie-ish. Aren’t you? And on purpose, too.”

  What on earth are they talking about? The celebrated butler hasn’t the faintest idea.

  3

  Here comes the big car, sweeping over the tarred roads that sweep towards the holiday coast. The roads themselves, and the big car, are dark and glistening, but the colour of the early summer is, as Sylvia says, almost deafening. Great blazes of blossom in the neat orchards and gardens; gorse rivalling the sun itself; the trees so green as to make you blink; the sky so blue as to take your breath away. Indescribable tints among the heavy shadows. Little villas all twinkling on the hillsides—doing their level best to look hideous, but hardly succeeding on an afternoon like this. Petrol pumps glowing like tropical plants. Sports-models flashing past like huge humming-birds. Everything shimmering and sparkling as hard as it can. Even the East Surrey omnibuses are beautiful in their bright red paint.

  The age of luxury doesn’t wait for Saturday morning to come pouring out of smoky London. A myriad wheels are whizzing southward; a myriad passengers are wedged among a myriad suit-cases. The blue and khaki patrols are saluting until you would think their arms must drop off. The noise and smell are, as Sylvia says, almost blinding. But the great Carter skims through it all with incredible calm and dexterity, his expressionless eyes solving problem after problem in fractions of a split second. The back of his neck seems to radiate slightly scornful efficiency; the flick of his gloved hand exacts obedience even from motor-bicyclists. Mrs. Shirley wishes that he wouldn’t go quite so fast, but this is one of the very few wishes that she seems unable to obtain. He does go most infernally fast, and, after all, the faster he goes, the sooner it will be over. But Sylvia doesn’t care if he goes as fast as the wind. She is too young to have considered the practical possibility of going any slower.

  The tarred road forks at a gaily-painted sentry-box
, and another uniformed arm jerks an encouraging salute.

  “That was the way to Pippingfold, Mummie. Did you see?”

  “Was it?”

  “Well, it looked rather like it, I thought. Oh, look at all those people in that charabanc! Aren’t they sweet!”

  “Were they?”

  “Well, you know what I mean, darling. They looked so hot and hopeful.”

  “They always do.”

  “Mummie, darling—you’re not still worried about that boiler, are you?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I think it’ll be rather fun seeing Noodles again. You know, I like her awfully. She wrote me the most extraordinary letter. I’ve never seen such spelling in my life.”

  “I thought she was attractive.”

  “What a grown-up word, darling. Why don’t you like her?”

  “I do.”

  “Then who don’t you like? Mummie!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “But it’s all right, really. You know I’d always tell you everything. And if it isn’t the boiler, then it must be me. But you’re not to think things.”

  “You wait till your daughter grows up.”

  “How absurd, darling. I tell you …”

  “What do you tell me?”

  “Well, there’s nothing to tell. But if …”

  With tremendous emphasis on this suspended conditional, Miss Shirley brings the conversation—if you can call it a conversation—to an end. She lies back against the fawn-coloured upholstery, and wriggles her shoulders and twists her feet. She appears to have nothing to add to the suspended conditional, and no feeling that any kind of addition is needed. She is singing now—a dance-tune without any words. Perhaps she is waiting for her daughter to grow up.

  A moment ago the tarred road appeared to be heading straight for a wall of pale-green down where it must either stop altogether or else climb a gradient on which no car in the world could follow it. But in the mysterious way that these things happen, the pale-green down is no longer there. It has changed its shape, and slid round to another quarter of the compass. Hardly rising at all, or seeming to alter its direction, the tarred road is now rushing swiftly towards a line of faint silver which has been stretched across a new and unnaturally high horizon.

  The song, the wriggling and the twisting all cease at the same instant.

  “Oh, look, Mummie! The sea!”

  “What?”

  “The sea! Don’t you adore it when it does that? Oh, and look at all those horrible little houses. Aren’t they perfect! Aren’t you thrilled, darling? Oh, it reminds me of my measles, and what fun we had afterwards. Oh, look at those chickens! Isn’t it all too deliciously ghastly and disgusting for words!”

  It certainly is, as the petrol pumps come thicker and faster, and the bungalows begin crowding together, and the turf is scarred by untidy excavations or disfigured by the nameless wreckage which has been left there to rust and to rot. An isolated hoarding, covered with sun-bleached advertisements, suddenly cuts off the view to the left. On the right a series of competitive announcements on stilts invite the visitor to half a dozen different hotels. Then a row of vile workmen’s cottages (or of workmen’s vile cottages), each with festoons of lace behind its tightly-closed bow-window. Some of them seem to be trying, in a fumbling and half-hearted sort of way, to be shops as well—their principal merchandise consisting of mineral waters and india-rubber heels. More petrol pumps. Another great burst of hoarding, where the familiar metropolitan designs alternate with almost Victorian pictures of bedroom furniture. An outbreak of new building, with salmon-pink window-frames rising from yellow-brick walls. “Motorists, Please Drive Slowly Through Newcliff.” A railway bridge. A public-house, with still more petrol pumps. A Gothic chapel. “The Preacher Next Sunday will be——” Impossible to read any more because of the pot-holes surrounding the tram-terminus. The first tram; almost a museum-piece in its way, but trundling doggedly along in the comfortable knowledge that it is costing the Newcliff ratepayers a little more every month. Stucco houses, with front gardens and carriage-sweeps. A concourse of many streets, converging on one of the tallest cast-iron sewer-ventilators that can ever have been erected. A regular Nelson’s Column of a sewer-ventilator, culminating in an openwork crown, and dwarfing the policeman at its base who has just flapped a pair of white gloves at the big car.

  “Holdren’s Garage. Open Day and Night. Why Go Further?”

  The big car never troubles to answer this question. Leaves Holdren’s mechanics conducting a post-mortem on a decrepit three-wheeler which has obviously no intention of going any further; leaves the tram-lines also; and sweeps off into a crescent of real shops, the owners of which have celebrated the fine weather by bringing most of their stock out on to the pavements. This, in turn, has sent the pedestrians into the roadway, and even the great Carter has to drive slowly through Newcliff. At the next crossroads, though beckoned forward by another policeman, he has to pull up altogether, owing to the obstruction caused by a vehicle peculiar to towns of this nature. A hand-barrow being slowly propelled by an elderly inhabitant, and covered with two large flat surfaces meeting at their upper edges in an acute angle. The flat surfaces are adorned with particoloured lettering of an amateurish description, and the whole contrivance is a perambulating reminder that the Diamond Dominoes—whoever they may be—are performing nightly in, or at, the Pavilion Chalet—and why anything should be called that, one can really hardly say.

  If the great Carter’s glance could pulverise this hand-barrow and reduce the elderly inhabitant to ashes, it would assuredly do so. But Sylvia, of course, is thrilled again.

  “Oh, look, Mummie! They’ve got a concert-party here already. Oh, we must go and see them. I’m sure they’ll be quite awful, and I shall laugh till I’m sick.”

  The hand-barrow, for once, seems to be justifying its expense. For though Mrs. Shirley smiles and says “Nonsense,” she doesn’t really mind whether she goes or not. And perhaps it will be rather a good thing if her daughter laughs to the extent indicated. She hasn’t been laughing quite as much as usual this last week or two.

  “Oh, please, darling. It’s just what I feel like.”

  “Do you? Well, we’ll see.”

  “Any time, I mean. I don’t really mind.”

  “No, of course we’ll go.”

  The enthusiasm seems suddenly to have changed places on the back seat, but they don’t say any more at the moment. The big car has broken loose again, and is careering past another crescent of villa-residences to the esplanade itself.

  An infinite perspective of lamp-posts, iron railings, little shelters, human beings, bath-chairs, band-stands, bow-windows and parking-places is brilliantly revealed. On the left the English Channel laps merrily against the shingle between the groynes. For the first time, almost, it is possible to smell something apart from exhaust-gases and tar. The travellers take deep breaths, and are decidedly glad that they have come.

  “Oh, look at them all!” says Sylvia—meaning the human beings. “Aren’t they marvellous!”

  They are.

  “Oh, look at that fat one!”

  The fat one is really a splendid example.

  “And that one with the bare legs!”

  The one with the bare legs might not appeal to all tastes, but is distinctly worth looking at.

  “And here we are, darling.”

  And here they are. The big car whirls into the front garden of the Majestic Hotel, crunches over the gravel, and stops. The revolving doors spin and sparkle as the frock-coated porter comes rushing out. Impossible to tell whether he really remembers Mrs. Shirley—as he appears to do—or is merely welcoming her as he welcomes all such unmistakable members of her sect. He is indefatigable in extracting the luggage. Tireless in handing it over to the two underlings in sleeved waistcoats who have also burst from the revolving doors. Nothing is too much trouble for him, and if he weren’t stopped he would have gone off with Cart
er’s little suit-case as well.

  “This way, madam. This way, miss.”

  The revolving doors again. The cool, dark and somewhat airless hall. The mahogany bower with the huge register. The morning-coat and neatly-striped trousers. The lustrous black hair with a slight wave in it. The key. The page-boy. The booming of the old-fashioned lift.

  Well, as we said before, here they are, and here they propose to remain. Snubs and Beaky are just thinking of leaving their offices, more than sixty-five miles away. Mr. Cottenham is in his study at the Manor House, Pippingfold. Mr. Everett, that successful architect, is playing bridge at his club. Mr. Fitzgibbon is, as usual, waiting for a letter from his lawyer, and for the result of the last race at Lingfield. Miss Mulberry is writing a telegram in her private study at St. Ethelburga’s. And Noodles—— Ah, you were hoping for news of Noodles, were you?

  You shall have it. Noodles is——

  Wait a minute, though. This is where we start another chapter

  Chapter VI

  News of Noodles—Odious conduct of Miss Maplethorpe—Gallant action by channel-swimmer—Further misfortunes of Noodles—Startling escape from St. Ethelburga’s—What was in Beaky’s letter.

  1

  “Well?” said Miss Mulberry, all bright and fresh again after a fortnight on the Italian lakes and nearly a week with her mother at Haslemere. “So you’re not leaving us after all, then?”

  “Well, no,” said Noodles, with a look of anxious suspicion;

  “Your guardian changed his mind, then?”

  “Well, yes,” said Noodles, still wondering if she were dealing with tact or ignorance.

  “It was lucky,” said Miss Mulberry, “that we were able to have you.”

  What she meant, of course, was that St. Ethelburga’s was no dumping-ground for unwanted wards, but a successful school with a long waiting-list; and that if Mr. Cottenham had changed his mind at the beginning instead of at the end of the scholastic year, then he would certainly have telegraphed in vain. But Noodles took it otherwise.